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1. I took my much-needed mental health day yesterday, although as it turns out I was also legitimately sick with bad allergies and a worse stomach, and so most of my day was spent sleeping. This is not a bad way to spend one’s time, especially since I don’t get much of an opportunity to indulge in it. But it wasn’t the ideal “batteries-recharged” sort of break I was hoping for. Still, I take what I can get. At the very least, it was a break from News.

2. I’m roughly halfway through “Oathbringer“, Brandon Sanderson’s massive 3rd volume in the Stormlight Archives. I re-read the first two massive volumes (because it had been a while, and I’d forgotten quite a lot), and then I had to read the little novella that he specifically asks you to read before starting Oathbringer properly, and so here I am. I think I’d be enjoying it more if I hadn’t read so much of it already, if that makes any sense. Or, rather – I’m very much ready to read something else.

3. So: I think I’m at a point in God of War where all the stuff that’s left requires me to be really good at the game (i.e., the volcano trials), or really patient and also really good (i.e., the endless farming grind for Mist Echoes), and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be that good. This is not necessarily a bad thing – I definitely got my money’s worth, and for the most part that game is extraordinary – but I suppose there’s a part of me that’s sad that I’m not going to ever 100% it, especially since there’s not that much left to do. This is less a criticism of the game and more just a reflection of the reality that I’m not as good at games as I thought I was. This is a bitter pill to swallow, though I suppose it was inevitable; I’ve been gravitating towards playing things on lower difficulty levels for a while now because my time is limited and I like to see as much as I can, and anyone who goes out of their way to taunt a 42-year-old dad for playing single-player games on easy has too much spare time on their hands anyway.

4. On the flip side, this also means that I’m free to dip into my backlog again. Ni No Kuni 2, I am all yours for the time being. And also Yakuza 6, of course. But I’m probably done with Far Cry 5, I think. I’m at the point in that game where there’s not enough side stuff to do because I’ve done most of it already, which means I sorta have to engage with the narrative, and the narrative is soooooooo bad. It’s rare that I come across a game where the story is just profoundly and offensively stupid, but here we are. Oh well.